LET ME STEAL THIS MOMENT FROM YOU NOW

The Hugo Winners, 2012

Here they are,stolen shamelessly from Tor.com. No, I didn’t win, but neither did I expect to, and frankly, it didn’t stop me from having one of my best Hugo nights ever, because as MC of the Hugo Awards I got to give so many Hugos to so many friends that it really was kind of crazy.

I will update more about the ceremony and Worldcon later in the week, after I’ve had time to recuperate. But suffice to say Chicon 7 has truly been fantastic.

I watched until you were forced off the “air” by an over-zealous bot at UStream (about which I am sure everyone is talking) and I thought you delivered a most spectacular awards ceremony.

Your humorous bits were very funny (Hello Dragoncon! – lol: your smile at being in Chicago while yelling in Atlanta’s direction was priceless and full of “fannish glee”), your commentary was poignant, interesting AND informative, your pace pitch-perfect.

oh – and I’d like to reprint your opening remarks on the Amazing Stories blog if they haven’t already been spoken for (fee? agent?); in many ways your opening remarks about the diversity AND oneness of fandom and the SF/genre community at large embodies the spirit and the direction that I am trying to take with that magazine as I bring it back.

So, as Toastmaster, did you master toast? ‘Cuz I’m swinging by your house on my next trip to Put in Bay. I expect whole wheat with real butter. My wife prefers white. What have you learned, Scalzi!?!?!?

In all seriousness, I was secretly pulling for Shadow War to win. That would have been too funny. And I’m bummed Interzone did not win. I just discovered that zine this summer, and I thought it was excellent.

Of the 5 for best novel, I’ve read two and loved them (Deadline and Leviathan Wakes), tried Embassytown and couldn’t stand it, didn’t even bother with A Dance With Dragons because I got bored with Mr. Martin’s series after the first book, and put Among Others back on the shelf after reading the cover blurbs. Good thing the Hugos don’t depend on my ‘druthers.

I thought you were great! I was also a victim of UStream which cut everyone off in the middle of Neil Gaiman’s acceptance speech. Grrrrr. The irony of SF/F fans being thwarted by an evil bot notwithstanding, it was extremely frustrating. While not all the winners were my choices, very little disappoints. The field was truly excellent this year. Only one wistful note for “Wicked Girls” which I knew would lose to “The Encyclopedia”, but was a groundbreaking entry for filk.

My Chicon7 experience (my first WorldCon) was bookended by you toasting stuff. I highly recommend it. It gives a lovely crunchy texture to the whole con experience. I lovelovelove what you said at the beginning of the Hugos. You sorta made me cry, man. I’m a new fan (of yours), so I’m sort of squeeful about having been there and heard you in person and stuff. What a fantastic community of people. Also, the Mallet of Loving Correction is awesome. I hope one day to merit one of those in my life. Seems awfully useful. ;)

John – I’d be careful if I were you – with the outstanding job you did as Hugo host, you could have a new permanent gig. Watching you work was like watching Bob Hope host the Academy Awards – you were efficient, funny without being mean and appropriately self-depreciating. Nice job!

I know there’s a lot of Gaiman love in the SF community, but The Doctor’s Wife was barely in the top five Doctor Who episodes from the season. The Girl Who Waited was so much more of a story – of an emotional connection.

I think the Gaiman’s win for “The Doctor’s Wife” was well deserved, and a standout episode of the new Who. It may be my bias as a fan of Hartnell through Smith, but Gaiman’s episode pulled off a very neat trick of gently and powerfully tweak a fan’s perceptions of the entire run of Doctor Who with his story.

I was really rooting for “Kiss me Twice” One, because I consider Mary a friend and two, because it’s a fantastic story that I really love. I can’t complain though because “The Man Who Bridged the Mist” is a fantastic story and almost too poignant for words. The ending just nails it. Actually, of the print nominees, this is the first year that I’ve had a chance to read most of them. So I feel a bit more up to date than most years. China almost always makes me work at staying with him though…

Oh crap. The details of the nominations and voting have been released, and looking at it, Hannu Rajaniemi’s The Quantum Thief missed being a nomination for best novel by one vote. I was going to nominate it but didn’t because I thought it was eligible for a different year. Sorry, Hannu.

Forgive me if this is a weird question, but the whole show I kept wondering: how did it not occur to anyone, during all the hours between the tech rehearsal and the broadcast, to go up to somebody’s room and bring down an end table for someone to set their statue on while at the podium? Or even two of them, stacked on top of each other, with a tablecloth thrown over them?

@Steve Metke and others:
There will be a complete video of the Hugo Ceremony made available. Please give us a few days to work out the best solution to this. Many of us are still winding things down at the hotel and/or in transit home.

can someone tell me how they pick Best Editor? For best author, they list the book the person wrote. I would guess that Best Editor is for book(s) or short stories that came out in the last year. How come they don’t list what the editor worked on?

Is there a way that people can read a story and get an idea whether the editor had a big influence on a book? I would think that some books or short stories are more ready to go when they are submitted and others need a lot more work with the editors. I am not sure how people tell. If it is just a matter of ‘best editor’ is for the best books, then the people who edited the 5 books nominated for best book would get nominated, but I doubt that happens every year.

Guess, all of the Hugos are nominated and voted on by the attendees and non-attendee members of that year’s WorldCon. I don’t know how people decide what to nominate (I didn’t pick up my membership until after nominations closed), but each voter is given a packet of material. The Long Form Editors just have a list of the stuff they worked on that came out this year, and the Short Form Editors had an anthology or magazine issue they worked on.

In the end, I decided how to vote for Short Form by how the sample was put together (what stories were chosen and how they were arranged in book/magazine form), since I couldn’t divine the difference between great writing and great editing of good writing. (If I’d come across really bad writing, then I’d know, but when you’re at the Hugo Nominated stage, generally you have the basics of ‘not writing or editing horribly’ down.) Authors who blog also usually mention their editors during nomination season.

John – like many others, I was watching UStream when the evil Daleks broke in and kidnapped Neil Gaiman during his acceptance speech. Terrible end to a wonderful career.

But seriously, he said, that was the first time I had seen you speechifying or whatever-ifying, and compliment you on your style and handling of the proceedings. You have a positive stage presence that transmitted beautifully through the aether. Which may explain the “true” reason for the lost feed: the ‘bots were jealous. Poor things. No concept of good taste, obviously.

Well, there were at least three good things about Chicon7- I’m trying to be positive here- JS was the toast master, Betsy Wollheim is a great editor and Ursula Vernon’s Digger is simply awe inspiring. Since I am not easily awed that is a major plus point.

On the other hand, the spectacle of fandom disappearing up its collective rear end in awarding the Hugo to a novel which is more or less completely incomprehensible to anyone who hasn’t been reading SF for thirty years suggests that we might just as well send for the undertakers and give the remains a decent burial whilst the rest of the world gets on with reading, watching and listening to things which they enjoy.

The presence of Rene Walling on the staff at Chicon proved that fandom is not only greying, it’s putrefying, and they don’t even have the excuse of being zombies. The claim that organised fandom was taking a stand against sexual harassment proven to be just another lie.

This is the straw which has broken this particular camel’s back; I have no desire to associate in any way with people who could do such a thing…

I think it would help if you read John’s posts on these topics, with particular attention to the Readercon debacle and male privilege. After that you could read everybody else’s responses to John’s posts.

And then, when you’ve got up to speed, you can come back and we can discuss why I hold the views I do…

I haven’t gotten to many of these, but although John’s entry was great, I have to say that The Paper Menagerie was fantastic. (I cried!)
I’m actually glad Martin didn’t win. His series started so well but the last two books have been a waste of time.

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